The time for excuses is over, Mr Albanese

Superficially clever but deeply cynical and damaging for the state. That sums up how federal Labor and its Transport Minister, Anthony Albanese, have obstructed progress on a vital second international airport for Sydney.

A government-commissioned study out this week shows yet again that a new airport is needed ''sooner rather than later'' to relieve the congested, costly and unsustainable one at Mascot.

Albanese's response - ordering yet more taxpayer-funded research into a demonstrably unsuitable site - reflects a lack of political courage to overcome his party's opposition to commonsense. It also reeks of disdain for everyone who would benefit from 30,000 new jobs and a $6 billion economic boost in the next two decades.

The latest report proves - this time by time-consuming and convoluted process of elimination -that the Commonwealth-owned Badgerys Creek site in the south-western suburbs is the only efficient, profitable and achievable option.

The RAAF base at Richmond as a spillover site for domestic flights would not happen for years and ''can only ever provide ancillary capacity for Sydney''. So the report tells everyone what was already known: there are only two possible greenfields sites and one, Wilton, is a dud.

Along with myriad environmental, construction and cost risks, the report says: ''The aviation industry is not convinced that an airport at Wilton is close enough to its primary market to make the case for the kind of investment needed to bring it into service''.

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That leaves Badgerys Creek. It can connect to the new south-west rail, create thousands of jobs for the western suburbs and spur growth there. The noise will affect about 8200 people at capacity in 2060, when technology will have dulled the impact significantly. The Mascot airport affects 130,000 people now.

Badgerys Creek delivers the greatest benefits with the lowest costs. It is the industry's clear preference and, ironically, Albanese's. Yet Albanese insists all research be done to keep ruling out Wilton and Richmond is a viable alternative when, in fact, his approach is a cover for his party's protection of nervous Labor MPs in the region. Albanese cannot force the issue without jeopardising his status in the ALP.

In his early career, Albanese saw Badgerys as an answer to his inner-west constituents' hostility to aircraft noise. He opposed his party's prevarication on the issue during the Hawke and Keating years. And he made hay when the Howard government did nothing to address Sydney's looming need for more aviation capacity.

''Quite frankly, we've had study after study after study,'' the then backbencher Albanese told the ABC in 2000. ''What we actually need is the government to bite the bullet and get on with building a second airport for Sydney.''

Trouble was, in January 2004 Labor changed its policy to ditch Badgerys Creek. Two months later Albanese said: ''We do not want the problems of aircraft noise visited on anyone.'' When he became federal Transport Minister after the 2007 election, he stalled by commissioning green papers and white papers into the aviation industry. But they said next to nothing on where and how a second airport should be built.

Three years on, he commissioned another report, this time at vast expense and with state government bureaucrats on its steering committee for added sheen. The resulting 3200 pages released last year demonstrated what Albanese and everyone had known all along.

But Albanese still could not - or rather would not - advocate Badgerys.

Neither has Premier Barry O'Farrell, who likewise fears losing votes. Some Liberals in western Sydney councils are skirting around support for Badgerys but will undertake detailed community consultation only if the federal government rules out Wilton. All have failed to explain to their parties and the people that Badgerys Creek is a no-brainer.

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey is among many federal Liberals who want it but Tony Abbott fears a voter backlash. In March he indicated Badgerys was not on the radar. Rather, ''down the track'', fixing transport problems ''means better use of Sydney Airport, it means better use of Bankstown and Richmond and, yes, it means better use of other airports too''.

What a convenient excuse for Albanese to hide behind: the ''we must have bipartisanship''. To quote the Albanese of 13 years ago: what we need is the government to bite the bullet and get on with building a second airport for Sydney.

Learning a thing or two from Top Enders

It's difficult to put a finger on it but something is quite discomfiting about making a hand gesture to another driver. Is a stiff central digit or the reverse double ''V'' applicable in a particular case? Will the forehead ''L'' suffice or perhaps that Gallic favourite ''la barbe'', the beard, accomplished with a forward thrust of the hand under the chin. What about a Greek moutza? That's a variant of the Aussie kids' favourite, the ''interrupting starfish'', where the hand is splayed and thrown forward as if in front of a rival's face.

For lovers of the Baltic, there's the age-old ''corna'', a bull's horns with pointer and pinkie erect - or the ''cutis'' of the subcontinent, where a right fist is clenched then that thumb is flicked forward under the top teeth. And how about that ''pepper mill'' of Italy where the user forms a right angle at the right elbow while using the left hand to mimic ''crazy'' grinding above the right hand. Granted, a touch unsafe for even the most angry driver.

No such problems, it seems, for those easygoing, inoffensive drivers of the Top End. A study of Northern Territory highways by anthropology professor Adrian Peace has focused on the unique way outback drivers gently - as opposed to violently - raise fingers on one hand as a gesture of acknowledgement to some, but not all, others hurtling by.

Peace doesn't give the gesture a name, so we will: ''the Croc''. Peace concludes that ''by exercising choice over when to acknowledge the presence of others, which others to acknowledge and which to ignore, and how to make an effective sign of co-presence, those traversing the Top End are not only exploring the expressive potential of the hand, they are introducing a modicum of sociability into a physical environment which seems, at first glance, quite unamenable to communicative conduct''.

Sounds like a cue for NSW drivers to introduce a modicum of sociability to peak hour. Here's an idea: let's nod, smile and wave gently from right to left, indicating it's OK to merge. We call it the ''Sydney sweep''.